


maybe we could have a thing

by The_Eclectic_Bookworm



Series: firsts [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2019-07-02 17:32:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15801300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Eclectic_Bookworm/pseuds/The_Eclectic_Bookworm
Summary: In the moment of his realization that he would be going out with Jenny Calendar, all he could feel was a vague confusion and a sense that he’d stepped into someone else’s life. Someone more put-together, perhaps. Perhaps a bit more suave. Certainly someone who always attended American football games; he’d have to clear that one up later.(set during some assembly required)





	maybe we could have a thing

It was really the fault of that damn faculty meeting the next day, where Giles said “Hi” and Ms. Calendar said “Oh!” and turned a very pleased shade of pink, as though he was paying her a compliment just by existing near her, and then she looked ridiculously pretty with that blush and he felt his heartbeat pick up and they ended up standing and staring at each other for a good thirty seconds. This was, of course, before they realized that the collective faculty, who had never seen them interact in an even vaguely positive fashion, was staring incredulously at them. Mr. Stevens said very loudly, “Get a _room,_ you two,” Ms. Calendar all but darted over to sit with the physics teachers, and Giles was left with the distinct impression that perhaps impulsively kissing Ms. Calendar at her front door might not have been one of his more well-thought-out ideas.

Ms. Calendar was first out the door as soon as the meeting was over. Giles followed, catching up to her in the middle of the hallway. “Oh,” she said again. She still had that happy flush to her cheeks, but she didn’t look flustered by seeing him. “Oh, um—so you got home safe?”

“Quite,” said Giles.

“Well, then,” said Ms. Calendar.

This conversation seemed to be going nowhere. “I, um, wanted to—if my actions last night were—untoward,” Giles fumbled, not sure how to apologize for kissing Ms. Calendar without making it sound like he hadn’t wanted to kiss Ms. Calendar.

“No,” said Ms. Calendar simply. “They weren’t untoward at all.” Without waiting for him to reply, she turned gracefully on her heel and headed towards her classroom.

It suddenly occurred to Giles that a lady of Ms. Calendar’s caliber almost definitely expected a certain level of wooing. Feeling a bit like an idiot, he watched her go, then began considering possible ways to approach the concept of a first date.

* * *

 

Giles hadn’t been on a first date in…well, ever, really. The absolute mess with Ethan had begun with them as friends, and they’d both been much more interested in the staying-in bit of their relationship than the going-out, so they hadn’t ever had to deal with first-date jitters. He’d had a few casual encounters over the years, but nothing serious, and certainly nothing the likes of Ms. Calendar. Asking someone out on a first date wasn’t anything he’d had to muddle through before, and as such, it terrified him.

It certainly didn’t help that he kept on thinking of Ms. Calendar’s confident smile, and the tilt of her head when she knew she was right, and the way kissing her had made him, a grounded and respectable Watcher, feel practically bloody weightless. The thought of asking her out ungracefully and being turned down was nerve-wracking, especially when she was looking at him with interested curiosity—even as he stammered and stumbled. Bugger.

She would later tell him that she hadn’t pieced together that his nerves were a result of his attempts at trying to ask her out, but she _had_ surmised that he was having trouble with the concept, so she’d used his stammering as an excuse to just give up on being wooed and ask _him_ out instead. Giles would later be very grateful for this, but in the moment of his realization that he would be going out with Jenny Calendar, all he could feel was a vague confusion and a sense that he’d stepped into someone else’s life. Someone more put-together, perhaps. Perhaps a bit more suave. Certainly someone who always attended American football games; he’d have to clear that one up later.

* * *

 

She had left him a note in his office, a Post-It: _hey England, gotta go home & change clothes for the game. mind if i swing by your place around 5pm and pick you up there instead? _There was a heart drawn at the bottom of the note in lieu of a signature. Giles smiled a little and pocketed it, then waved a nervous goodbye to the children and headed home.

Upon reaching his apartment, he showered, then changed clothes himself. Fussing over the right first-date tie was a sufficient distraction from the delightfully nervous feeling in his stomach. He kept on thinking about Ms. Calendar (no, _Jenny—_ she’d expressly requested the informality), and felt ridiculous for it (she hadn’t directly said it was a date, after all), but couldn’t really stop himself. She hadn’t been at all unhappy about kissing him, and that—that counted as a win, didn’t it? When one’s kissing prowess made a lady blush happily upon seeing them again? He thought about how he’d never seen Jenny smile like that around anyone who wasn’t him, straightened his tie, and was donning his overcoat just as he heard a knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said, stupidly, then winced.

Jenny opened the door all the way and gave him a playfully reproachful look. _“Really!_ ” she said. “I could’ve been a vampire!”

“Are you?” Giles asked, trying to make it sound as flirtatious as Jenny. Mostly he just sounded breathless and vaguely panicked.

“No, I am _not_ ,” said Jenny, and took his hand, placing his fingers to her wrist so he could feel the jump of her heartbeat.

Giles, unused to close contact, stilled, his own heartbeat picking up; he hadn’t been touched tenderly in a long while, and he’d missed it. It took him a moment to realize that she was asking him something. “What?” he managed.

“I said,” said Jenny, mouth quirking upwards in a genuinely affectionate smile, “is that enough proof for you?”

“Oh—yes, yes, quite,” stammered Giles, letting his hand drop and reaching to polish his glasses, “very much—yes, completely.”

“Cool,” said Jenny, and exited his apartment, heading out to her double-parked car.

Giles, flustered, watched her go, then smiled a bit and followed, pausing at the passenger-side before opening the door and stepping in. She was already reaching for the radio. “Nothing _too_ atrocious, thanks,” he said without thinking, then hastened to qualify, “I-I mean, just—not—”

“Nothing after the eighteenth century?” Jenny, who had begun to drive, sounded perfectly happy to fall into their old patterns, but the argument lacked any real anger behind it. Something about that made Giles feel very happy. “We got it. I’ll break out the vinyl—”

“As though you know how to operate anything made outside the last five years,” said Giles, grinning.

Without taking her eyes off the road, Jenny took one hand off the steering wheel and reached out, quietly lacing her fingers with Giles’s. There was an unusually shy smile on her face, and that same blush was beginning to rise in her cheeks. “Listen, don’t make me look at you right now,” she said. “I’m gonna let go if I look, because this kind of thing is _not_ my forte.”

“All right,” said Giles breathlessly. His grin felt positively stuck on his face.

They stayed like that for all the drive, right up until she parked the car outside a small, brightly lit restaurant, squeezed his hand, and let go, getting out of the car. Giles had to take five seconds to compose himself before following her.

He couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was that made him fall so easily to pieces around her, but he found himself liking the feeling; it was unusual and wonderful to feel so out of his element and so delighted by the cause of it. She was standing on the sidewalk, smiling, and stepped past him to lock the car, then tucked her arm into his. “I’m paying,” she said.

“Jenny—”

“ _Rupert,_ ” said Jenny, “you and I _both_ know that you would rather pull out your own fingernails than go to an American football game. Think of this as my way of thanking you for…I don’t know, letting me drag you out of your comfort zone.”

“You yourself are quite far out of my comfort zone, to be honest,” said Giles, glancing nervously down at Jenny’s small hand in the crook of his elbow. Stepping away from her, he opened the door for her, and was quite surprised when she took his hand and tugged him through with her. “Jenny, really, I was making an attempt—”

“What, to be chivalrous?” Jenny scoffed, smiling. “I’d much rather have you next to me than have you opening doors for me.”

It was a subtle, gentle statement, and it made Giles like her all the more. “I think I’d like that too,” he said.

“Oh, hey!” Jenny tugged on his hand, grinning. “I just remembered—what was it you wanted to tell me?”

Giles, shy, opened his mouth, but just then, a waiter peered at them both and inquired, “Table for two?”

“Hold that thought.” Jenny patted Giles’s shoulder with her free hand, turning to the waiter. “Yeah, it’s just us,” she said happily. “Can we have that one by the window?”

The waiter led them over to the table, one at a perfect vantage point to see Jenny’s car and the sunset stretching slowly over Sunnydale. Giles tried to pull out Jenny’s chair, forgot he was holding Jenny’s hand, and nearly fell over his own feet trying to make sure he didn’t inadvertently push Jenny into the table.

This had the unexpected conclusion of Jenny turning into his arms and placing both of her hands on his chest to steady him, looking up at him with a gently amused smile. “Relax, okay?” she said gently. “Let’s get drinks.”

A bit stunned, Giles sat down, and realized that Jenny had somehow managed to pull out his chair for him. “It’s, um,” he stammered, trying to collect himself, and finally managed, “it’s really just that we haven’t—um, talked. About. The kiss.”

He had meant to bring up the concept of a first date, but his accidental slip of the tongue seemed fortuitous; Jenny’s smile was becoming extremely pleased. “Yeah?” she said. To the waiter who had just arrived, she added, “We’ll have a small plate of nachos, a non-alcoholic beverage for me because I unfortunately have to set a good example at my place of work, so—uh, let’s say lemonade, and the hottest, most British-y tea you’ve got for him.”

Giles blinked, then smiled a bit as the waiter left. “Thank you,” he said. “You know me quite well.”

“Oh, please,” said Jenny, waving her hand. “Anyone who meets you has you pegged as a tea guy within the first thirty seconds of conversation. Tweed jackets, sweater vests—it really isn’t that much of a stretch.”

“Something wrong with my sweater vests?”

“I mean, you’re definitely rocking the cute-professor vibe,” said Jenny, resting her chin on her hands and smiling at him.

She was flirting. Was she flirting? Giles had no idea how to flirt back. “I was curator at the British Museum for a time,” he said nervously, and was a little surprised at Jenny’s small grin. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just—” Jenny’s smile was affectionate, not at all teasing. “I really appreciate your dedication to knowledge,” she said. “I mean, sure, you’re not exactly a computer expert, but the way you look at books…” She trailed off, waving a hand. “It’s sweet,” she said finally. “You value tangibility. Physicality. I’m not necessarily in agreement with you about it, but it does make sense that you don’t trust computers quite as much.”

This was surprisingly touching, especially coming from Jenny. “I am trying to learn a bit more about computers,” Giles offered up. “I’ve been reading up a bit—” He stopped, considered his words, then continued. “I must say the thing that frightens me the most about them is how different they are from what I know,” he said. “Books seem so much more straightforward to me than…well, you’ve heard me talk about the importance of the senses. I find it difficult to forge that same connection with a computer.”

Jenny nodded, her smile widening. “I can understand that,” she said. “It’s kinda like how if I tried to read Latin—I mean, bad example, I know Latin—but if I tried to read a language I didn’t know, I’d feel totally lost and more than a little alienated. Learning about computers, especially when you aren’t used to them, it’s a little like that. I mean, you’ve got books, and that’s a language of learning in itself, but I’m more into learning all kinds of language than devoting myself to the study of just one informational medium.”

“You know Latin?” said Giles, his heart fluttering.

“Studied it in high school,” said Jenny with a grin. “But Rupert, my point is more about…the importance of knowledge, I guess, and that the way we learn is gonna keep changing as we progress. Saying that human interaction is going to be limited by computers—I don’t think that human interaction can _ever_ be limited, because communities are where the best ideas are formed. The way society communicates is going to go through phases, and yeah, there might be a few more screens involved, but that doesn’t erase—” and here she reached across the table, taking his hand, “—this,” she said. “Touch. As much as I love the ease of communication allowed by computers, I know I’d go crazy without real people around, and I’m pretty sure most other people feel the same way.”

Giles hesitated, then said, “It bothers me. Knowledge not being a concrete thing.”

“Why?” Jenny was fervent, now, tugging her hand from his to gesture as she talked. “Think about it, Rupert— _think_ about it for a second. There’s still so much we don’t know even as individuals; is it so hard to believe that our world’s wealth of knowledge isn’t a finite and recorded list? People get stuff wrong. They grow. They change. Computers have the possibility to make change _easier,_ make knowledge  _accessible_ and not just locked away in libraries—”

She was grinning, bright and excited, in a way she hadn’t before when talking of computers. Most of their earlier conversations had been fierce and furious, meant to draw blood, and it had been hard to pay attention to her points when he’d been so furious about her not listening to his, but this—she was so extraordinarily passionate about learning, and spoke of knowledge in the exact same way that Giles himself felt when cross-referencing data or finding the exact book someone needed.

“I want very badly to kiss you,” he said without thinking, but didn’t blush; he meant it.

Jenny exhaled, sharp and soft, as though brought back down to earth by his words, but the energy in her eyes wasn’t gone. “I’d like that,” she said.

This was, of course, when their food and drinks arrived, but Giles still couldn’t take his eyes off of Jenny. Both of them were still a little flushed; the way they had exchanged words had felt intimate, ardent. “I’m afraid I’m not that hungry,” he began, but she gave him a pointed look and then pushed the plate towards him. “Really—”

"We’re going to be out nearly all night,” said Jenny patiently. “You should at least have a bite or two.” 

Giles's mind was still on what she’d said about growth, and about the concept of knowledge that didn’t take years to acquire. Something about the fleeting nature of words on a screen did still bother him, but they didn’t seem as pointless or as passionless anymore when paired with someone like Jenny.

He took a chip. She took one too, letting their fingers brush.

* * *

 

They made out like teenagers in Jenny’s car, her with her hair falling out of its updo, him honestly surprised by the fact that he had not, in fact, lost his touch when it came to kissing, if her continued and enthusiastic kissing of him was any indication. She was a good kisser, too, though this didn’t surprise him at all; Jenny didn’t do anything poorly. Couldn’t, he thought. It wasn’t in her nature to leave a job undone, and the job she was doing right now was _dizzyingly_ thorough, and, and—

“Good  _lord,_ we’ll miss the game,” he said suddenly, pulling back. Jenny looked up at him with an expression of mild annoyance, as though the game now seemed relatively trivial to her if it meant she wouldn’t be kissing him (a reaction which Giles catalogued and filed under _Things I Need To Swoon A Bit About Later)_. “I, I promised the children I’d meet them there,” he explained. “The usual supernatural nonsense going on, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately,” Jenny echoed, her gaze drifting to his mouth. He hoped she wouldn’t kiss him again; his self-control only went so far, and he was absolutely positive that he wouldn’t be able to pull away from her again if she leaned in. Thankfully, she pulled back, then said, “Hold on, I need to fix my hair.”

 _“Really,_ ” said Giles.

“Stop— _stop,_ ” said Jenny, laughing at the teasing grin on his face, “you ruin everything, you make it messy—just let me fix this and I’ll start driving, okay?” She wavered, then _did_ lean in, pressing her lips sweetly and quickly to his before pulling away to fuss with her hair.

“It’s not doing much,” said Giles unhelpfully. “You still look _thoroughly_ debauched.”

“And whose fault is that?” Jenny leaned across him to take a comb from the glove compartment, then began combing out her hair in the rearview mirror. It fell undone and around her face in messy, astonishingly pretty tangles, making a small part of Giles wonder what she would look like after—well. More than kissing. He supposed he didn’t look all that professorial himself, and a glance in the wing mirror confirmed that fact; he straightened his tie, wiped a lingering bit of lip gloss off his mouth, and watched Jenny do up her hair.

“That was…” He trailed off.

“A pretty good release of a _lot_ of tension,” said Jenny, who had nearly finished with her hair. “Do you know how difficult that first kiss made my last few weeks? I kept on almost heading over to the library to just press you up against those bookshelves and—”

“Yes, thank you, Jenny, but if you finish that sentence we really _will_ miss the game,” said Giles loudly, doing his best to _not_ forsake his sacred duty in favor of further fogging up the windows of Jenny’s car. He wasn’t sure whether or not it was going to work. “I think, um, Willow and Xander are going to brief me there—”

Jenny let her hands drop, gave Giles one last, heated look, then said, “Sure,” drawing out the word. After that: “I’ll drive you home, if you like, when you’re done saving the world.”

“I had hoped,” said Giles wryly, “that being enamored with you would be at least a bit less difficult to handle than having a rather violent workplace rivalry.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Jenny, grinning as she started the car. “I’ve always loved a challenge.”


End file.
